


I had this dream that I was on an airplane (afraid to fly)

by Elisexyz



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: (...or at least he tries to be), Bromance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear of Flying, Gen, Hurt Harvey, Hurt!Harvey, Hurt/Comfort, comforting mike, comforting!Mike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Harvey is afraid of flying. Mike isn't too observant when he's excited about flying in First Class.





	I had this dream that I was on an airplane (afraid to fly)

**Author's Note:**

> I bet you thought that I was done with Harvey whump of any kind. Nope. I'm not.  
>  Harvey is very much not afraid of flying in canon, judging by how much fun he and Scottie were having on that airplane in season 2, but what if he _was_ and he was stuck on a plane with Mike?  
>  ...poor guy, I swear I'll write something about him wrapped up in a blanket and cared for, someday. ~~No, I probably won't. Duh.~~  
>  I stole the title from [here](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rockettothemoon/fearofflying.html). If you want to yell at me or talk about- uh- stuff, [here's](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com) my Tumblr. I don't bite, I promise. ~~I just kill people throwing shitty fics at them.~~

Mike had no idea what had gotten into Harvey.

Sure, he could be a little bit of a dick sometimes – or often -, but he was way too grumpy. Mike had even tried to quote Star Trek to get a smirk out of him, but _nothing_ , Harvey had just kept going through his documents, looking for all the proper IDs to show. When Mike had purposely _misquoted_ Star Trek and Harvey had just kept glaring at the incredibly long queue in front of them, Mike had really started to worry.

Alright, he wasn’t happy either of that surprise trip they had to take, but he had a good reason: he was supposed to have dinner with Grammy that evening and he had had to cancel on her. She, of course, had been understanding and she had even expressed her joy at the idea that Mike was so busy with work that he didn’t have time for dinner. Still, he felt guilty and sad, because lately he seemed to be _always_ too busy to find some time for her.

But Harvey? Harvey basically had no life outside of his work: he had mentioned a brother a couple of times, but apparently he didn’t live in New York, and he didn’t have a girlfriend or any relative Mike knew about… He just worked.

Or maybe he did have someone he was supposed to see? It was unlikely: Mike knew him pretty well by now, he would have known. Maybe.

Probably Harvey was just upset to have his routine interrupted. Still, it was no excuse to take it out on him: waiting in the queue was awful, even more so if the one person who was supposed to keep him company was too busy staring – or glaring – at the nothingness to chat.

 

-

 

Mike had been on a plane once, with Grammy, but surely not in First Class.

The seats were so comfortable and flight attendants brought them warm towels to clean up their faces. _Wow_.

“ _God_ , this is the most comfortable sit _ever_ ,” Mike announced, glancing at the window next to him and then turning towards Harvey, who muttered in a sort of acknowledgment of his words.

Mike felt all his enthusiasm quickly fading, covered by annoyance. Why was Harvey being so unresponsive? He was a douche, sometimes, but he did react when Mike spoke, he didn’t _ignore_ him. Harvey always had a remark ready, sometimes sharp, often sarcastic. Why wasn’t he replying?

“What’s the matter with you?” Mike finally asked.

Harvey glanced at him. There was something weird in his expression, but Mike couldn’t figure out what it was before Harvey covered it with annoyance. “Absolutely nothing. You just talk too much.”

“I was trying to fill the silence, since you barely said a word since when we got here,” Mike replied. “Come on, this isn’t normal.”

“I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well tonight,” Harvey replied.

Mike frowned. “You seemed okay when I first saw you this morning.”

“I wasn’t,” Harvey cut it short. He turned towards his right, avoiding facing Mike as he pretended to be really interested in what was going on around him. Mike frowned again, trying to put his finger on what could possibly be wrong with him. Was it a personal matter? Was he annoyed that he had to go all the way to Manchester? Was he annoyed because he had to spend all that time _with him?_

They stayed in silence until the flight attendants started walking among the passengers to check if their seatbelts were on. Mike had kept observing Harvey the whole time, and he had noticed how his eyes lingered on the emergency exit, which was five seats away from them, how his hands looked sweaty as he fastened his seatbelt. But it was only when the plane started moving and Harvey nearly gasped, his back pressed against the seatback and his hands gripping the seat, that Mike connected the dots and came to the most obvious conclusion.

“Harvey…” He asked, in disbelief. “Are you afraid of flying?”

The plane was gathering speed and Harvey looked pale, like he was about to puke. He kept his mouth shut and simply glared at Mike, who still couldn’t believe it.

The idea that Harvey could have been afraid of _anything_ , especially something as common as flying, had never crossed his mind. It was so obvious, and he still had missed it. This explained his weird behaviour after they had been told about the trip.

Shit, what was he supposed to do with Harvey scared out of his mind next to him?

“You know,” he said “statistically, you're safer on an airplane than most of the time you spend on the ground. I mean, the chances of being on an airline flight which results in at least one fatality are 1 in 3.4 million if you travel using one of the seventy-eight major world airlines.”

The plane was getting off the ground, and Harvey didn’t seem reassured by his statistics. If anything, his grip on the seat had tightened and his heavy breathing suggested that things were quickly spinning out of his control.

Okay, time for another tactic. Hoping to not get killed in the process.

Mike quickly slid his hand under Harvey’s, taking advantage of the fact that Harvey was so taken aback by his touch that he loosened his grip on the seat for a second.

“What are you doing?” Harvey asked, between his teeth. He was still pale and pretty sweaty. Mike quickly used his free hand to loosen Harvey’s tie a bit: he didn’t want him to suffocate in there. He didn’t miss the panicked look Harvey gave him when he moved from his seat in spite of the fact that the flight assistants had specifically told them to stay put as the plain took off.

“…Comforting you?” Mike replied, even if it sounded more like a question.

Harvey didn’t answer, he simply glared at him, but not angrily enough to scare Mike off.

The plane started tilting towards their left, and suddenly Harvey started trying to _brutally_ _murder_ his hand.

“They’re just stabilizing the plane,” he explained. Hopefully, knowing what was going on would help. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“We are trapped… In a goddamn machine… In the _air_ ,” Harvey hissed. “There’s nothing _normal_ about this.”

“Cars are way more dangerous,” Mike shrugged. He surely was more afraid of cars than he was of airplanes. “Do you have anything to distract yourself?”

Harvey shook his head. Of course: a normal person would have brought an I-pod, but Harvey Specter used _CDs_.

“We can use my I-pod as soon as we are at the right altitude, alright?” Mike offered.

Harvey glanced at him. “You want to torture me with that poor excuse of music too?”

Mike grinned slightly. “If you had brought an I-pod of your own we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?”

Harvey grunted in response. The plane was shaken for a moment, probably because of the wind or an air gap. Mike quickly looked at Harvey, who seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to breathe in order to live.

“Harvey? Hey, breathe. It was just an air gap, nothing concerning.”

Harvey looked at him and took a couple of shaky breaths. Mike could feel his hand trembling into his own and he swallowed, feeling tears pushing behind his eyes. It was _upsetting_ to see him like that, so terrorized that he couldn’t even worry about his precious appearances. Mike wished to be able to just teleport them to England.

“Why did Jessica send you here in the first place?” he asked, without bothering to mask a hint of anger. _He_ would have never knowingly tortured Harvey like that. And, thinking about it, maybe talking a little could be distracting.

“She doesn’t know,” Harvey replied. “I always used the train.”

“Ah,” Mike said. Didn’t Donna know either? She surely would have said something had she known, right? She would have at the very _least_ warned Mike.  

For a second, Mike felt kinda proud of being the only one to know about Harvey’s fear. Then he was back in the real world, with a terrified boss next to him and not much he could do to make him feel better.

“What’s your favourite colour?” Mike asked, because it was the first thing he could think of.

“What?” Harvey frowned, turning slightly towards him, his head still pressed against the seat.

“Just trying to distract you. What is it?” Mike replied.

Harvey rolled his eyes. “I don’t have one. I’m not in high school.”

“Adults have favourite colours too,” Mike replied. “Come on.”

“Alright,” Harvey sighed. “Let’s say blue. Blue is okay.”

“How _original_ ,” Mike rolled his eyes. “What’s your dream place to travel to?”

“Anywhere I can get to by _train_ ,” Harvey glared at him. Shit, that hadn’t been a clever question.

In that moment, because of course the pilot had a shitty sense of humour, the plane started rolling again, and Mike prayed that it would be stabilized soon, because Harvey’s face had just lost whatever little colour it had regained.

“Do you like sports?” Mike spat out. God, he felt like a teenager for the first time out on a date. Except if he didn’t manage to keep the conversation going Harvey could have had a panic attack next to him, not just decide that he wasn’t good for a second date.

“I used to play baseball. And I like boxing in my spare time,” Harvey said. His head was still pressed against the headrest and he was facing the seat in front of him, his eyes fixed on it as he visibly tried to not breathe that heavily. He hadn’t even complained about his stupid question this time, which meant that it was so bad that he had admitted to himself that he needed that distraction.

“Wait…” Mike replied, in his most shocked tone. “Does that mean that you actually have a _life_ outside of work?”

Harvey turned his eyes towards him, his eyebrows raised. “You are an idiot,” he commented.

“Hey, you can’t blame me for believing that you went for hibernation outside of work hours,” Mike grinned.

Harvey slightly grinned back, as Mike noticed that the signal to keep the seatbelts on had been turned off and a voice announced that they could now turn on their electronic devices, as long as they had activated the flight mode on any mobile phones before they got on the plane.

“I’m assuming you won’t take your seatbelt off,” Mike commented. Harvey glared at him.

Mike would have preferred to take it off to be more comfortable, but, after all, they were flying _in first class_ , he was already more comfortable that he had ever been. He could keep the belt on for solidarity. And also because he had noticed Harvey’s worried glances whenever he had moved during the beginning of the flight, as if shifting from his seat put him in some kind of danger.

“Here,” Mike said, handing him one of his headphones.

Harvey had the nerve to shoot it a disgusted glance, but Mike was more relieved to see him less terrified than he was offended. Eventually, Harvey took it and placed it in his ear, and only then Mike realized that their hands were still locked together. Harvey wasn’t strangling his hand anymore nor was he trembling – as much as his breath was still rushed -, so Mike had just kind of ignored that piece of data. Which seemed highly relevant now, because they were still _holding hands_ and Harvey didn’t look like he was about to die anymore.

Still, whenever he had been scared, Mike had found it reassuring to touch his Grammy, to have any physical contact with her even by simply holding hands, and he didn’t want to take that from Harvey because he was embarrassed.

He didn’t have the time to overthink it anymore though, because Harvey had seemed to notice his glances at their hands and he had quickly broken the contact, resting his hand on his own thigh for good measure.

Mike didn’t comment on it, and as they sat in silence he spent the following hour planning how he would help Harvey when eventually the plane would have to land, but he didn’t come up with anything truly useful. After all, what was he supposed to do other than try to comfort and distract him?

“You should try to sleep, you won’t even realize that you were on a plane,” Mike commented.

Harvey shot him an annoyed glance. His face had regained enough colour that Mike wasn’t expecting him to drop dead any moment, but he still looked far from healthy. He kept glancing at the emergency exit, sitting remarkably still.

“Yeah, this whole thing is so _relaxing_ ,” Harvey replied, through his teeth.

“I can give you both of my headphones, maybe that’ll help?” Mike offered. He usually found it pretty useful to surround himself with music to space out and forget about everything surrounding him, maybe it would work for Harvey too and he would be able to spend a couple of hours sleeping instead of panicking.

“No,” Harvey replied, sharply. “Thank you,” he added, a couple of seconds too late. Mike didn’t mind, it sounded sincere nonetheless and he appreciated that Harvey had even thought about expressing some gratefulness for the offer.

“We could play truth or dare,” Mike shrugged.

“I am _not_ a teenage girl at a sleepover,” Harvey replied. “And what would you even dare me to do?”

The first answer that came to Mike’s mind was something along the lines of ‘get up from that seat and take a walk, for starters’, but he immediately realized that it would have been pretty cruel and not funny at all. So he just gave up on finding a clever remark and he suggested: “ _Alright_ , we can play honesty hour or something. Truth or dare without the dare.”

“Is this your twisted way of getting me to give you some blackmail material?” Harvey frowned, jokingly.

“I know that you hired a fraud, I think that’s blackmail enough,” Mike pointed out.

Harvey grinned. “I’m still not telling you everything about my life, rookie. You can unlock the let’s-share-everything-buddy card in time.”

“How much time?” Mike asked, playfully.

“About a million of years,” Harvey grinned.

“Very funny,” Mike commented, pouting and crossing his arms. “I thought we could be BFFs, buddy.”

“Don’t call me ‘buddy’.”

 

-

The landing was about as messy as Mike had expected it to be: Harvey looked like he was about to die, he probably sank his nails so deep down his seat that they’d have to pay for the repairs and Mike spent the whole time reciting love songs in a whisper, hoping that Harvey would be too annoyed to panic – it worked only partially, but it was still better than nothing.

When they were finally back on the ground, Harvey was still pale and pretty shaken up, but soon he started glancing at Mike, visibly uncomfortable: Mike couldn’t imagine that he was happy with sharing his weakness.

Aside from those looks, Harvey went on with his business as if nothing had happened, and it was only that evening, in their hotel room, that he said: “Let’s not mention what happened. To anyone.”

“Harvey, chill, it sounds like we had an affair or something,” Mike grinned. “But maybe you should tell Jessica about it?”

“No,” Harvey cut him off. “I can handle it.”

“Didn’t look like it from where I was standing,” Mike mumbled. It was, frankly, pretty dumb of him to not want to tell anyone about it when it could have helped him avoid finding himself in another upsetting situation.

“I am expected to do a job,” Harvey said, slowly. “Nobody cares about my personal issues, I need to be here and so I am here, it’s nobody’s business if I liked the trip or not. Try to learn it.”

Mike snorted. “I guess that rumours about lawyers being robots are true then.”

Harvey rolled his eyes, trying to hide a smirk. “To prove to you that deep down we are human beings, I’m going to offer you dinner in exchange for your silence. How’s that?”

“You mean you are offering me dinner as a _thank you_ for helping you out?” Mike corrected, trying to look mockingly thoughtful.

“You did a shitty job at it,” Harvey pointed out.

“But you did appreciate the thought.”

“Whatever you say. You coming or not?”


End file.
